I presented my session, Elementary Wiki Wonderland on Friday morning. I wanted to share the links to my presentation wiki and class wiki. I was thrilled with the amazing teachers I met who are as excited about wikis and Web tools as I am. It is so fun to share! The MACUL conference is where I learned about wikis from Julie Myrmel and Diane Rich in Hudsonville two years ago and I am happy to be able to share this with others. My presentation wiki also has information on how I use Blogs in my classroom as well as blogging resources. Be sure to check out the Wiki and Blog links to see how other educators around the world are using these tools with their students, as well as the Web 2.0 Tools page. I will continue to add to the presentation wiki. I plan to create tutorials on how to add users to your wiki and how to use the manage wiki settings. I am happy to answer questions, feel free to email me or contact me through the MACUL space ning (and while you are there, Join the MACUL space ning. It is another great way to connect with amazing eductors in Michigan.)
Session presented by Julia VanderMolen and Maryly Skallos
Second Life is a 3D Virtual World entirely built and owned by its residents….with…a resident population of over 12,997,840 (and growing)…” (Alliance Library System 2009)
Residents come to the world from over 100 countries, span in age from teen – 85 and are about 50% male and 50% female.
There is a Teen Second Life – for ages 13-18. Second Life is not intended for the very young to navigate on their own. Caution should be exercised before entering with children. Teachers of Teens have the opportunity to have their class meet in Second Life and interact. This is an opportunity for the teachers of these teens to explore this world with their students and help them to be the good digital citizens.
There are PD opportunities for Teachers. Webinars are conducted in Second Life. Check out the ISTE island, Discovery Educator Network island, EdTech Island, Newcomer Castle, and more.
Second Life has only been around for 10 years and is growing. I am sure there will be an elementary classroom version of it soon. It is important for teachers (and parents) to learn Second Life so we can guide our students. We can’t teach them tech that we don’t know. We need to know what they are doing, and let’s have some fun in Second Life while we learn. Go to Second Life, download it and create an avatar! See you later in Second Life.
I was very disappointed when I learned earlier this week that I have pneumonia. I was bummed because I feel bad, but even more bummed because my physician told me I could not attend the MACUL Conference! I look forward to the conference every year. This year, I had more responsibilites than ever before… facilitating sessions, writing/posting to the MACUL blog, helping run the SIG-EE annual meeting, manning the MACUL booth, and supporting all the presenters from my district.
So I decided to do what I can virtually. I started with Twitter. The conference has Twitter buzzing for sure! I started following everyone who was following MACUL. People at the conference share tips, links, and ideas. As people share links, I tag them in my delicious account as macul09. If you would like to see all the links I tagged, you can see them here.
I attended Thursday’s Alan November keynote through the eyes of Ben Rimes and Kevin Clark as they used Cover it Live. It was almost as if I was there. When they wrote about students being creators of content, with Audacity being one of the tools mentioned, I shared some Audacity video tutorials. Shortly afterwords, I received a nice note by email from Kent Manning, a technology coordinator from Belleville, Ontatio, Canada. He also was not able to be at the conference and was “attending” the keynote virtually. We have similar jobs. He wondered if my tutorials were on iTunes (they weren’t) and told me an easy way to get them there. We are now Twitter friends and I’ve invited him to try out Plurk. Plurk is a Twitter-like network that allows more conversations. Try it out if you have not yet. Steve Dembo likes it; if Steve likes it, you probably will, too. Anyhow, this is an example of how a PLN can help you learn and grow professionally.
Later, a friend (Krista Hanna), saw that I was online and had Skype open. She called me and I was able to listen in on two of the sessions she attended. Awesome. Krista and I were to co-present this morning. Since Skype worked so well, we planned that if I was feeling up to it, that she would Skype me in for the presentation. I don’t look too great, so I did not turn on my webcam; I didn’t want to horrify the participants and have them run out of the room! However, I was able to pipe in with comments during the presentation. VERY COOL.
I’m also taking the opportunity to reflect on the conference, something that is difficult to do when you are rushing from place to place and networking with others. I have some ideas for the conference planners on ways to make MACUL 2010 even better!
I haven’t heard Joe speak before…he’s back in Michigan having grown up in Saugatuck.
Handouts are online http://denblogs.com/digital_storytelling
Couple of resources…also linked off his DEN blog.
The first thing that Joe is showing is a clip featuring Sean Astin. It highlights AFI Screen Education, a program that encourages using video to create movies. These are the key terms, sound familiar? It what teachers want.
- Research
- [Script] Writing
- Storyboarding
- Filming
- Editing
- Exhibiting
Joe is highlighting The 21st Century Educator’s Handbook.
Why should students create movies?
To help all student have a deeper understanding of course content. It’s important for teachers to understand that they do not have to understand film theory etc. to make a good movie. It’s just like writing an essay. Start with the Introduction, move to the Body, and finish with the conclusion. Or, as Joe put it, “Tell ‘em what you’re going to tell ‘em, tell ‘em. tell ‘em what you told ‘em.”
What kind of videos can you create?
- PSAs…Public Service Announcements
- “Olds”…History told from a news perspective
- Reenactment of historical events
- Retelling a peice of literature…like Romeo and Juliet.
- Movie Trailers
Joe is highlighting a lot of visual aspects of the movie examples, easy techniques for conveying emotion as well as information.
Check out FOX Hilites. Student shot highlights.
If you’re a teacher, then Joe’s resources are very valuable. He has a lot of experiences working with students.
This morning in the TWICE room (W2-66), we’re off to Florida to the SeaTrek program at the Mote Marine Laboratory. This is one of the TWICE discount providers, so if your ISD/RESA is a member, you’ll get that discount. Arnie Comer, Macomb ISD, is the facilitator for this session.
SeaTrek of course starts off with their high energy intro with video clips. When Kasey came on, the person behind me said, “Can she see me?” Yes she can! And, it’s supposed to be 80 in Florida today!
Kasey gave us a nice overview of the game show on shark myths, full of shark facts and shark myths. Lots of 
grins and chuckles throughout the program. The game show is full of graphics and fun sounds. Did you know in 2001 60,000ish people were injured by toilets. In that same record breaking year, 55 people were injured by sharks.
We also learned about the Manatee program, the Sea Turtle program, the Coral Reefs program, and all about their programs.
They are full for the year, and this is their first year that they filled up. They filled up in October, but that was unprecedented. Still they are very popular and amazing, and you’ll want to start registering in August for next year.
Andy discussed a lot of free software, most of it not open source though, but cool stuff none the less. You can find his handouts on his website, He has links to a lot more free stuff that he didn’t get a chance to talk about. Here are a few of the tools he discussed:
- ZoomIt – Zoom in, draw on the screen, countdown timer. Just pop this in the Startup folder in your Program menu and it will be available everytime you turn your computer on. (here’s a short tutorial video I made on ZoomIt a year ago or so)
- ImageResizer – This is a Windows XP PowerToy. Download and install this and you can simply right-click on an image or group of images and you can change the resolution. Very handy if you want to put pictures you took with you 7.2 megapixel camera on the web or in a powerpoint.
- PhotoFiltre – Simple photoediting program. Not as powerful as something like PhotoShop or Gimp, but that’s really a good thing for most of us.
- Picasa – Image organizer from Google. It will allow you to do some very simple picture tweaking. The newest version of Picasa (3.0) added a bunch of new features, so if you haven’t used it lately you might want to check it out again.
- PowerPoint Photo Album – This is a download for PP2007, but is already integrated into some older versions of PowerPoint. It will create a powerpoint slide show from a large collection of pictures with just a few button clicks. Andy creatred a slideshow with 36 pictures in PowerPoint in about 2 minutes. If he had 100 picuters (or more) it would not have taken any longer to get it together.
- iSpring Free – Turn a PowerPoint into a flash file you can upload to the web.
- YouTube in Education (pdf) – Check out his handout, particularly if YouTube is blocked in your building.
- Format Factory – Convert virtually any type of media file into virtually any other format. Works with videos, images, audio files, DVD video files… I’ll have to give this one a look.
- Jing – Cross platform screen capture tool (also mentioned in the Alan November Keynote). It is very easy to use, but it will only create *.swf files (which you need to open from within a web browser).
- Ghotit – Free online service that will read text aloud to a student and offer alternate words, which it will also speak aloud. I will be using trying with my son as soon as I get home today.
- Termites – Seating Chart Generator. The cool thing is you an tell it not to seat certain students near another particular student.
- Bullzip – Is a pdf printer. This program acts like a printer that you select when you print your document.
You haven’t heard? You can win a FREE registration to MACUL 2010 in Grand Rapids? How? Just enter the 2009 MACUL Photo Contest. Details are below followed by a video of just how to enter:
2009 MACUL Conference Photo Contest
Please enter your best photo of the MACUL Conference 2009. Entries are limited to conference participants and attendees during Wednesday, March 18, and Thursday March 19. Submit entries before 7:00 AM Friday, March 20. All entries should be submitted online via MACUL Space (www.maculspace.ning.com) with the tag— MACULphoto. Those submitting photos for this contest grant MACUL the option and permission to publish the images on the MACUL website, MACUL Space and in the MACUL Journal. Judges will award prizes for 1st and 2nd place.• 1st place—Complimentary registration to the 2010 MACUL conference
• 2nd place—50% off the cost of registration to the 2010 MACUL conference
We are looking for a variety of creative photos that capture the excitement and uniqueness of the conference. Enter and display your best pictures!
As promised, here’s the video on just how to do it, or view the LARGE version right here:
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